


Speak My Language

by HopeForTheWitch



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M, Memory Loss, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:26:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeForTheWitch/pseuds/HopeForTheWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreams of laughter and of tears, of magic and destruction, and the invitation still stands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak My Language

Sometimes he sits by the fireplace, the warmth soothing the ache that's settled in his bones, and he'll page through the photoalbum laid carefully in his lap by the friendly nurse. The photos are now mostly faded pieces of his past, much like his broken memories. Out of reach, unattainable. He stares at the faces of various boys and girls, they're all kids in the eyes of an old man, however mature they'd thought themselves at the tender age of twenty-one.

He stops halfway through, when he comes across a picture of two boys. The photo has been torn into several pieces, a thin strip of tape fluttering down on the carpet between his slippers. The parts are glued to the page now, but he wishes he could take the glossy paper in his hands.

He wants to hold it, clutch it, wants to crumple it into a ball and toss it against the window in front of him, out into the night where some stranger might stumble upon it, step on it, and pick it up. Where another person, someone other than _him_ , might look at it and wonder at the happiness in that torn picture, the _once upon a time_ of a lonely old man who has long since forgotten.

Two boys staring unwittingly at the camera, their only fault the eagerness of youth. Unmarred faces, scars hidden by clothes and flesh and bones. On their own they were unhappy, regarded their lives as unfulfilled. Greedy boys, all alone, then one day they found each other, and together they were _worse_.

Together, they were worse.

*

He goes to sleep and he dreams memories. He dreams of events and places, of people who are whispering his name like it's an invitation. His limbs are nimble once again, he feels fit and agile like he hasn't in a long time, finds himself in the body of a young man with a working mind. He dreams of laughter and of tears, of magic and destruction, and the invitation still stands.

 _I am Stiles_ , he thinks for the first time in years, and with that he accepts.

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to Language by Scott Matthews and I was reminded of that scene in Shortbus with the old man and how hard I cried.


End file.
